I'm guessing they gave him the general discharge for either missing some meetings and exercises, or for talking to the North Vietnamese during the war.
"talking to the North Vietnamese during the wartalking to the North Vietnamese during the war"
that and the Senate testimony are the best candidates.
Wouldn't it be sweet if we had someone's memo telling him NOT to go to Paris as a US serviceman in the Reserve? Disobeying an order could generate a General, couldn't it?
Missing meetings wouldn't be that big (except it would prove the dems hypocritical). The talking with the enemy...now that's different.
I don't think Kerry was ever in the Selected Reserve(SELRES), which is the active reserve component of the armed forces. He was released from active duty to the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), which is the so-called "inactive reserve", subject to recall to active duty upon order of the Secretary of the Navy (through the Secretary of Defense and the President).
He therefore never was required to attend any drill meetings, other than having to report once a year to his hometown reserve center for update of records and a cursory phyical exam. IRR members are given 50 dollars today for coming in on their assigned report day. Failure to show without good cause could have went down as a black mark, but it wouldn't have been enough to earn him a General discharge at fulfillment of his IRR obligation.
Again, an IRR member, while technically subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), is almost never recalled to active duty (which is a requirement to punish someone under the UCMJ) or selected reserve with active duty orders, in order to impose a punishment. Most of the time, if the member has committed a crime while on inactive reserve duty, any charges would have to proceed from the civilian criminal courts. No servicemember in the last 40 years or so has been recalled to active duty to be punished at court martial, unless it was proven that that servicemember committed a serious offense punishable at court martial while on active duty. Once the member "escapes" from the IRR, it's pretty much unheard of for DOD to be able to bring someone back in for punishment.
Usually, all evidence is gathered up and a referral is made to the former member's local district attorney's office for further review. As military bases are federal property, the cases usually end up in the federal court system for review by a U.S. Attorney.
A JAGMAN (Manual of the Judge Advocate General)investigation would also have had to take place, with an investigating officer delivering his or her findings to the requesting officer having jurisdication over that IRR member, and then a higher-authority officer (so-called "convening authority") deciding the course of outcome (non-judicial punishment, Court Martial, administrative separation etc.).